Supernatural fic: Unclassifiable (Sam/OFC, NC-17)
Title: Unclassifiable
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Sam Winchester/OFC
Rating: NC-17
Words: 5142
Warnings: Pre-series, no spoilers. Consensual underage sexual activity.
Disclaimer: Winchesters and setting so very much not mine. Unfortunately.
Summary: There is Sam. There is girl. There is lust and porn in their high school library.
Notes: Profound thanks to marinarusalka for the wonderful beta, and to eowyns for early (and enthusiastic) audiencing. Written almost entirely during mini_nanowrimo, which was a fabulous experience. Constructive criticism and general feedback is much appreciated.
He's the only person who spends as much time in the library as she does. At first she thought she must be imagining it, because what would a boy like him want with the library? But apparently she should work on not judging books by their covers or whatever, because no, it’s definitely him, over and over again. Flipping through the ancient card catalogue, sometimes thoughtful, sometimes frantic. Wandering through the stacks, tapping his pencil against the spines of the books as he goes. Hunched over one of the tables in the corner, the one with the microfilm machine. She’s thinks she’s even heard the flap-flap-flap the film makes when it gets to the end of the reel, so it seems like he might even be using it. If so, he’s probably the first student to do so voluntarily since they installed the damn thing in the 1960s.
She’d like to say she barely notices when he’s around, but the fact is, he’s pretty hard to ignore. Maybe it’s the broad shoulders, she thinks, sitting at the front desk during second period (listed on her class schedule as study hall, but she always spends it here, helping out), idly stickering barcodes to the books they just got in. She usually prefers her boys (and maybe her girls? She hasn’t quite decided about that yet) on the slender and androgynous side, feels the world could use a lot less jock masculinity in it than it seems to have, at least if the rest of the world is anything like her disgustingly stereotypical suburban high school. But she has to admit they really are very broad, his shoulders, especially for someone with such slim hips. Not that she’s watched his sweatshirt ride up his stomach when he stretches after an hour of poring over a stack of books or anything. Nor has she thought much about how he could really use a haircut. Whenever she catches glimpses of his ears (if he spends so much time in the library reading, shouldn’t he at least cut his bangs enough to not have to push them out of his eyes every five minutes? Even if she likes the way they brush his eyebrows) she always wonders what they’d look like naked.
Um. Okay, maybe not always. Sometimes she gets distracted by the nape of his neck. Not that she’s actually looking or anything. It’s just, when shelving books you have to go where the books go. Dewey decimal system and all that. (Though she thinks they should switch to the Library of Congress - more flexible and specific and not owned by some litigious asshole, and that’s what most colleges use these days, anyway. At least, any college that she’d want to go to. Maybe that’s what she should tell the guidance counselors next year when called in to talk about applying to colleges. As long as they use Library of Congress, it’s okay by her. Ahem. Anyway.)
He’s been doing this for four weeks (when he transferred in from… somewhere) before they ever have anything resembling a real conversation. She knows he’s talked to Mr. Grunberg, the actual librarian - a nice old man, surprisingly up on new electronic research tools, given his age - but never when she was around. Given that she spends every homeroom, lunchtime, and free period in the library, as well as a couple of hours every day after school? Exceedingly strange.
She can’t tell if he’s just really focused and preoccupied, or avoiding her, or what. She’s pretty sure she’s caught him watching her check out books to other students a couple of times, and once she looked up from recommending Love in the Time of Cholera to her friend Janice to find it sitting on the edge of the desk, though when she glanced back over to his corner he was still just sitting there with his back to them, steadily taking notes like he had been for the last half-hour.
~
When it finally happens, she’s standing behind the desk watching Mandy Lavoy stalk out of the library without paying her fine, having flipped her russet-red curls and thrown the magazine she‘d wanted to the floor in annoyance when told she couldn’t take it out. She can’t resist muttering under her breath, “Wonder if she’s from Thessaly,” as she goes ‘round the counter to pick it up.
She’s startled to hear a low laugh nearby, and when she straightens up she finds him leaning against a table a couple of feet away. “I kinda doubt she’s smart enough to be a witch,” he notes casually, like these weren't the first words beyond "Hi" and "Due back in three weeks" that they'd ever actually exchanged.
“Point,” she says, feeling herself nod and smile without conscious volition. He’s got this look on his face like he’s not sure he should be doing this but seriously doesn’t want to stop, and she feels a momentary surge of triumph to know that he’s been thinking about her just as she’s been thinking about him. Then she blushes, because she doubts he’s been thinking about her exactly as she’s been thinking about him, admitting it to herself only in the wee hours of the morning, staring at the dark ceiling and panting for breath with her hand stilled between trembling thighs.
“So, um, I’m Sam,” he says, ducking his head a bit and looking at her expectantly.
“Penny,” she replies, and sets the magazine down on the table next to him.
He slants a glance at her. “Penelope?”
“Yeah. Old-fashioned, right? But my folks had a thing for The Odyssey. Not that I have any intention of sitting at home waiting.” She’s never liked the implications of being named after the first famous loyal wife in Western literature.
“No, you don’t really strike me as the waiting and weaving type.” The corner of his mouth quirks. “’Course, you don’t really strike me as the adventuring type, either.”
“You don’t even know me!” she protests.
He raises an eyebrow.
“You’re taking AP Chem, Calc 1, the Bible as Literature, Econ, Photo, and Concert Choir. You read a lot of science fiction, mysteries, dead white Brits and American feminists, and have a soft spot for magical realism, existential playwrights, and melodramatic Russians, both literary and musical. You want to go to school on the East Coast, maybe somewhere like Smith, maybe somewhere like Columbia. You like a variety of music - I’ve heard you humming everything from Bach to Metallica to the Indigo Girls, and a bunch of stuff I’ve never heard of. You drive a dark red Honda civic hatchback. And you alphabetize like the wind, but tend to get the order of L and K confused.”
She gapes at him. “I’m not sure if I should be flattered or completely creeped out right now.”
He shrugs, smiles sheepishly. “I pay attention.”
“I guess,” she replies. “So does this mean I get to find out about you?”
“Not sure there’s anything to find out. Army brat, moved around a lot. Dumbass older brother.” He shrugs again. “That’s about it, really.”
“… None of which explains why you spend so much time in the library.”
“Well, why do you spend so much time in the library?”
“So… you’re good at alphabetizing?”
“Among other things.” He shoots her a full-blown grin and she finds herself almost blinded by its sheer open joy, and can’t help but beam back in return.
They stand there smiling at each other for a few moments before he seems to come back to himself, ducking his head again and scratching the back of his neck. “I… should probably go. But it was nice meeting you, Penny. See you around?” That hopeful look again.
“Yeah.” She gulps, nods once. “See you around.”
He strides out of the library on those long legs of his, glancing back just as he turns the corner. She tries to pretend she wasn’t still watching, but knows she’s probably been betrayed by the enormous smile still stuck on her face.
At this particular moment, she thinks, giddily, it’s hard to care.
~
After that, not a day goes by without at least a few minutes of conversation between them. She quickly discovers that he may be the one person at Hillview High School who knows more about classical mythology than she does, but is woefully ignorant about the Science Fiction and Fantasy fiction genre that plays with it. She presses Terry Pratchett’s Witches Abroad and Soul Music on him, thinking he might get a kick out of the twisted fairy tales and the granddaughter of Death, and insists that he at least read Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game even if he never touches any other SF. Something tells her he’ll sympathize with Ender, possibly too much. He looks at the little stack of books dubiously, but checks them out anyway. He in turn recommends books on other types of mythology for her to explore, drawing parallels and making connections between them with captivating ease.
~
She’s shelving books after school one day when Sam comes around the corner with a determined look on his face. He hasn’t been by in the last two days, and upon taking a good look at him, her vague sense of worry deepens.
“You look like shit,” she informs him. He’s got these bruised circles under his eyes and his skin has an underlying colorless cast to it, like he hasn’t seen the sun for weeks. Somehow, despite his broad (hunched, tense) shoulders and ridiculous height, in that moment she thinks that if she just put a finger to his chest and nudged, he’d fall right over.
His mouth twists into a wry, sad smile. “Yeah well. I’ve gotta admit, I’ve been better.” He pauses with his hand on the bookcart, looks down for a few seconds - thinking, steadying himself, she’s not really sure. She watches his green t-shirt-clad chest expand, then subside as he exhales with a sigh. He glances up at her from under his tangled brown bangs, and suddenly her heart clenches. She knows, she knows… well, she’s not sure what exactly she knows, but something’s up. Something’s wrong.
“Sam, what is it?” She knows her voice is low with worry, but she can’t bring herself to care.
He shakes his head. Takes a step towards her. Closes his eyes, breathes. Opens them and takes the last step, closing the gap between them and carefully placing his warm hand over hers on the bookcart.
She can feel him trembling slightly, shaking with nerves or exhaustion or hope or all of the above.
He reaches out with his other hand, drifting the pads of his fingers against her cheek before gently cupping her jaw in his palm. He’s looking at her so seriously, she’s sure he’s about to tell her that something awful has happened, that his grandmother died or his house had burnt down or his mom got diagnosed with cancer or something. Strange how they’ve never really talked about their families. She’s seized with a sudden urge to tell him all about her younger sisters and their family dog and how her father plays bridge with his brother (her uncle Donny) over the internet every Thursday. But maybe not right this second, because he’s looming there in front of her, leaning in, swaying just a tiny bit as his hand tightens on hers and his eyes slide shut, hers following just a fraction of a second later.
Then, then, he kisses her. He kisses her like a drowning man, like a ravenous wolf, like his life depends on it, like every other kissing cliché she has ever heard and probably more besides.
At this point her brain kicks in and she grabs the front of his shirt, twisting her hand into the soft fabric to pull him closer and kiss him back fiercely.
In response, he backs her up against the bookshelf and lets go of her hand in order to clasp her waist. She can feel the heat of his hand through the thin cotton of her Teen Titans t-shirt and holds onto his arm to keep it there, marveling at the way it seems to raise the temperature of her entire body.
He bites tentatively at her lips, teeth scraping and holding on with an edge of desperation. When she tilts her head and curls the tip of her tongue into his mouth, she can feel the whine that emanates from the back of his throat all the way down to her toes.
A minute later she hears herself make an embarrassingly similar sound when he nips teasingly at her earlobe, breath hot against her neck. He seems to take that as permission, and his mouth fastens eagerly onto the pulse point under her jaw as his hands slip under her shirt, fabric sliding up her torso until it reaches her breasts. She buries one hand in his hair, lets the other clutch at his elbow, nails digging into his tricep as she struggles to keep breathing through the heat.
When one of his thumbs grazes her left nipple through the cotton of her bra she gasps hard, knocking the back of her head against the metal of the bookshelf and sinking into it as her knees turn to water.
When she opens her eyes again, he’s staring down at her with eyes blown wide and dark and something like worshipful, muddy green gone almost black with emotion.
She smiles shakily at him. “You… okay?”
He gazes at her for a second or two more before visibly pulling himself together enough to answer.
“I… yeah,” he breathes. “Yeah.”
Slides his hand across her jaw and around to the back of her neck, leans down to kiss her again, sweet and deep and warm.
At this point her hands seem to develop a mind of their own. A very insistent mind of their own, as they reach down to tug the hem of his t-shirt up enough to allow her access to the hot, supple skin of his back and abs.
He moans into her mouth as she runs her hands along his skin, and pulls back long enough to let her push the grey hoodie off his shoulders and strip the t-shirt over his head, leaving his hair in even more disarray than it had been.
She laughs up at him and ruffles it some more, but gets rapidly distracted by the sight of those broad shoulders exposed to the school’s harsh fluorescent light.
She can’t even describe the sound he makes when she runs her nails down his neck and across his perfect collarbone, but she’s startled when he drops to his knees in front of her, and the hands he places on her waist are trembling.
He looks up at her beseechingly as he moves to push her t-shirt up over her breasts. “May I?” His breath ghosts across her abdomen, and she babbles, “Yes, yes, please, yes.”
He tucks his face into her cleavage and just breathes, once, twice. She’s glad that he doesn’t seem to mind her nails digging into his shoulder, because she can’t help but grip even more tightly as he noses at her left breast, then carefully closes his mouth around her peaked nipple, tonguing it firmly through the light blue cotton. Perhaps thinking it only fair, he then proceeds to do the same with her right nipple, leaving her left one to chafe under the cool damp fabric with each inhale and exhale.
“Please, Sam.” She’s not even sure what she’s begging for, at this point, but he seems to understand. Smart boy.
Smart boy with hands and mouth and oh… She bangs her head against the bookcase again when he flips down her left bracup and huffs warm air over the chilled nipple. She feels him grin against the underside of her breast, hears him mumble, “Careful, there,” before deliberately twirling his tongue clockwise around the aureole.
She manages to gasp out, “Jesus, Sam,” before being reduced to simply panting and straining and holding on to his shoulder for dear life as her focus narrows to nothing but his hot, wet, exploratory mouth and tongue and teeth.
He stops. His hands move to her hips, then smooth her black pleated skirt down the outsides of her thighs. “Penny,” he says, low and serious.
When she pries her eyes open this time, his hands have moved to rest on the backs of her bare calves, tucked right behind her knees, and he’s staring up at her again with the most naked look of need she has ever seen.
Keeping their eyes locked, he slowly starts sliding his hands up the backs of her legs until his fingers reach the edge of her black bikini underwear where the curve of her ass meets the top of her thighs.
“Please tell me this is okay,” he begs.
“Please…” she repeats, faintly.
The half-smile of slightly predatory delight that comes over his face starts butterfly flutters going in her gut, which only get stronger as he slowly, slowly draws her underwear down her legs. When he reaches the tops of her black Chucks, she lifts one foot to let him slip it through the leghole, leaving the scrap of fabric to dangle around her other ankle.
Then he runs his hands back up her legs, kneeling up to cup her ass and duck under her skirt. He presses his face in, a deep breath turning into a full-body shudder. Her knees buckle, and she instinctively spreads her thighs with the movement as she settles herself to lean more sturdily against the bookcase.
He brings his right hand around to comb his fingers through her pubic hair, one finger dipping farther in than the rest.
“God… Penny. You’re so wet,” he breathes. There’s a pause, and she imagines him bringing his finger to his nose, pushing it past his lips. She hears a muffled whimper, then suddenly, suddenly, a cool wet tongue swipes velvet across her clit, hot breath whispering against skin and heating her up straight through.
She has no way to classify the noise she makes as he applies his tongue again, undulating, caressing, turning her nerves and blood and thoughts to liquid fire. 800.001, perhaps. Or PSwhatever, prefera… Oh god.
“Oh god oh god oh god,” she gasps, helplessly, as he finds exactly the right spot at the very edge of the slow, steady twirl of his tongue around her clit.
The edge of the bookshelf digs into her fingers as she grips it, desperately trying to hold herself together. “Please,” she manages, “please don’t stop.”
He hums smugly, and the vibrations send a quiver up along her spine straight to her hindbrain. His tongue never falters as she shakes and shivers and melts against the end of the bookshelf, boneless and panting, metal cool against her cheek as she moves her head restlessly back and forth with the aftershocks.
When she finally forces her eyes to open, she finds herself gazing down at a glowingly proud Sam smiling shyly up at her through his bangs.
“C’mere,” she says, hooking a hand into his collar, tugging him up off his knees and pulling his mouth to hers for a slow, deep kiss. She’s surprised at how good he tastes, and when she breathes in to steady herself it actually makes her a little dizzy instead. He crowds into her up against the shelf, intertwining his limbs with hers as he kisses and kisses and kisses her.
As the intense expansive fuzziness in her head subsides a little, she becomes aware of him pressing firmly into her thigh, pushy without meaning to be. When the realization hits her, it nearly makes her knees buckle again, but instead she holds onto him harder and snakes her other hand down over his hip to rub along the hard length of him.
He moans into her mouth when she does, and throws out a hand to lean his weight on the bookshelf. She fumbles a bit with the button of his jeans, but once she manages to get it open she can then slide the zipper down in one smooth motion.
She hooks both thumbs into the elastic of his underwear to pull it with his jeans down over his hips and onto his thighs. She gets caught briefly, causing him to inhale sharply with surprise, but eventually manages to maneuver the material over his cock without further incident. She sets one hand on his hip, watches the other wrap delicately around him, hears him struggle against a deep groan at her touch - and lose the battle when she takes more solid hold. Then she deliberately raises her chin to look up and watch his expression as she jacks him.
He’s got his eyes shut tight, brow furrowed in concentration, teeth digging deep into his bottom lip. In that moment, his face is the hottest thing she has ever, ever seen.
Not taking her eyes from his face, she continues to fist the length of his erection, steady rhythm, definite pressure. When she tries adding a bit of twist at the end, he releases his lip with a gasp, and she takes the opportunity to seal her mouth over his, licking in with her tongue in time to each stroke of her hand. She can feel him straining, can see his free hand flailing and shivering with tension at the very edge of her current field of view, and she spares a moment of thought towards feeling ridiculously proud to have pushed him into this state.
Soon he is gasping softly into her mouth more than kissing, so she nips her way across his jaw and down his neck, her hand speeding up to match his panting. His entire body is shaking, and when she bites down hard on his shoulder, his breath hitches, and he groans her name out long and low as he spills over her hand.
They lean against the end of the bookshelf for several minutes afterwards, mostly immobile other than their gradually calming breathing and the occasional involuntary shudder.
~
Eventually, he pushes himself up a bit in order to gaze down at her, a look in his eyes that she hazily categorizes as “complicated wonder.”
“Penny,” he says.
“Sam,” she replies, and she knows that same look is in her own eyes as she reaches up to tuck a strand of hair behind his ear.
He leans down to press a deep, sweet kiss to her lips, then pauses for a few moments with his forehead touching hers, eyes closed. Opens his eyes, picks up a book from the to-be-shelved cart. “Let me help,” he offers.
She quirks a small smile at him. “Always the gentleman,” she teases gently, and starts at the other end of the cart. The two of them together make quick work of the bookcart, but as they get close to finishing she notices that his previous melancholy seems to be seeping back in, evident in his worried brow and slumped line of shoulder.
He waits, brooding, as she closes up the library, but when she puts a hand on his shoulder he smiles up at her, and even if it doesn’t completely reach his eyes she can’t help the tug she feels on her heart. She slips her hand into his as they walk out to the parking lot, and he holds on just a little too tight, like he’s afraid she might dissolve right in front of him, disappear into thin air.
~
When they reach the car, he leans her against the driver’s-side window for another kiss, hands heavy on her hips and hair flying every which way in the wind as she twines her fingers through it.
He pulls away to let her unlock the car and open the door. His smile turns wistful, and for a moment they just stand there and look at each other. He opens his mouth, probably to say goodbye, but she stops him by jumping in with, “Do you… need a ride home?”
“I….” She can see the hesitation in his eyes, but then he smiles. “Yeah, that would be great. Thanks.”
“Great!” she beams back at him, and gets in as he goes ‘round to the other side of the car. They don’t talk much during the drive, but she slips her right hand into his left one once they’ve pulled out of the school parking lot, and he covers both their hands with his right one, holds them safe and secure in his lap.
He directs her to a residential neighborhood a few minutes’ drive from school, somewhat rundown but not terrible, and has her stop in front of a small box of a house with a big black truck parked in the driveway. They sit for a moment, staring out the windshield, not looking at each other, but when she feels his hands tighten around hers she looks over at him and solemnly considers the line of his profile, points and curves softened by messy dark hair and the tiniest remnant of baby fat.
He glances up at her, and she recalls all of a sudden how strung-out he’d looked at the start of all this a mere couple of hours ago. But rather than do anything as simple as asking, she opts to just lean in to meet his kiss, both of them melting into it, clutching at the solid comfort of the car interior. Eventually, he pulls away, breath rasping in and out raggedly. Holds on to her hands as he looks at her with eyes both clouded and clear, that underlying sadness coming through more strongly than ever.
“Goodbye,” he says, quiet but sure.
“Goodbye,” she replies.
She wishes he would kiss her again, knows it’s written right across her face, but he shakes himself once, presses his lips together determinedly, and gets out of the car. Walks quickly up the path, like if he stops he’ll never manage to start again. He unlocks the door, pushes it open. Stops. Turns. When his eyes meet hers she feels a weight settle over her, comforting and nerve-wracking and shivery all at once. He smiles, and even from this distance she can see the wistfulness of it, sad and sweet and real. She smiles back, gives just a little wave. He nods, takes a deep breath, and goes in the house.
She sits for a few minutes, gazing at the door, then bangs her head against the steering wheel thrice before driving slowly home.
~
She never sees him again.
Whenever she closes her eyes in the following few days, she can still picture his lanky form framed in the doorway, can feel the warmth of his hands and the promise of his mouth. On the fourth day after, she starts to get worried in earnest, and what flashes at the edges of her consciousness becomes instead the tense lines around his eyes and the way his shoulders never completely relaxed, even at his most open.
After a week, she gives in and asks Mr. Grunberg if he knows anything, but he just shakes his head, says no one’s seen him for a week and half.
She doesn’t correct him.
~
Two weeks later, while they’re working on magnetizing a stack of new books, Mr. Grunberg casually says, “Oh, by the way. Sam Winchester? Has apparently transferred. This morning the office got a request for his transcripts to be sent to a school in Wyoming.” He goes on to talk about what a pity it is, a boy that smart having attended seven schools in three years, but she’s tuned him out in favor of sitting stock still and blank with distress. Eventually she manages some kind of sound of agreement, and even resumes threading magnetic strips through hardcover bindings, hands moving mechanically without the benefit of coherent guidance from her brain.
After closing up the library that evening, she goes to the table in the corner that’s still piled high with the books he’d pulled from the shelves over the course of the past few months.
Her plan is to just put the books on a shelving cart, shelve ‘em, and be done with it. She’s glad he’s not dead or anything, but it’s hard to be happy about the abruptness of his departure, about the complete lack of explanation. But somehow, when she goes to pick up the books, she just can’t let it (him) go that easily. Instead, she finds herself pulling the pile toward her to peruse. One by one, she takes books from the top of the stack, contemplates them, then puts them on the cart. Hungarian folk tales, comparative shamanism, Chinese ghost lore, Roman religious syncretism (she gets distracted by the discussion of the Greek goddess Artemis becoming the Roman Diana and reads for a few pages before catching herself and moving on), Paul Bunyan, advanced Latin, Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber (this one she sets aside to check out herself), werewolf lore, personifications of death, herbal medicine, hell in Western literature, Terry Pratchett’s Thief of Time… slip of paper. Slip of paper? Sitting at the very bottom of the stack is a thin rectangle of scratch paper with three neat lines of writing at the center.
A phone number with an unfamiliar area code.
An email address - a string of random-looking numbers at yahoo.com.
And a P.O. box for some town she’s never heard of in Missouri.
She sits down with a thump, staring down at the little scrap of paper sitting so innocently on the desk.
~
She’s never called him. Never sent email, never thought about dropping a letter in the mail (thought about writing the letter, sure, about a year after he left, but somehow when faced with a blank sheet of paper words just didn’t seem to make any sense to her anymore).
But she still has that piece of paper, carries it folded up in her wallet like one day it will be exactly the right currency. She hardly ever thinks about it - pretty much only every couple of years when she switches wallets - but she knows she’ll never voluntarily throw it away. The one time her wallet got stolen she felt more panic on account of those three little rows of text than she did for any of her credit cards or IDs or cash. When she got it back with the cash gone but everything else intact, she’d been so relieved that she almost dialed him up. Her cell phone was in her hand before she realized she had no idea what she would say.
Maybe someday.
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Sam Winchester/OFC
Rating: NC-17
Words: 5142
Warnings: Pre-series, no spoilers. Consensual underage sexual activity.
Disclaimer: Winchesters and setting so very much not mine. Unfortunately.
Summary: There is Sam. There is girl. There is lust and porn in their high school library.
Notes: Profound thanks to marinarusalka for the wonderful beta, and to eowyns for early (and enthusiastic) audiencing. Written almost entirely during mini_nanowrimo, which was a fabulous experience. Constructive criticism and general feedback is much appreciated.
He's the only person who spends as much time in the library as she does. At first she thought she must be imagining it, because what would a boy like him want with the library? But apparently she should work on not judging books by their covers or whatever, because no, it’s definitely him, over and over again. Flipping through the ancient card catalogue, sometimes thoughtful, sometimes frantic. Wandering through the stacks, tapping his pencil against the spines of the books as he goes. Hunched over one of the tables in the corner, the one with the microfilm machine. She’s thinks she’s even heard the flap-flap-flap the film makes when it gets to the end of the reel, so it seems like he might even be using it. If so, he’s probably the first student to do so voluntarily since they installed the damn thing in the 1960s.
She’d like to say she barely notices when he’s around, but the fact is, he’s pretty hard to ignore. Maybe it’s the broad shoulders, she thinks, sitting at the front desk during second period (listed on her class schedule as study hall, but she always spends it here, helping out), idly stickering barcodes to the books they just got in. She usually prefers her boys (and maybe her girls? She hasn’t quite decided about that yet) on the slender and androgynous side, feels the world could use a lot less jock masculinity in it than it seems to have, at least if the rest of the world is anything like her disgustingly stereotypical suburban high school. But she has to admit they really are very broad, his shoulders, especially for someone with such slim hips. Not that she’s watched his sweatshirt ride up his stomach when he stretches after an hour of poring over a stack of books or anything. Nor has she thought much about how he could really use a haircut. Whenever she catches glimpses of his ears (if he spends so much time in the library reading, shouldn’t he at least cut his bangs enough to not have to push them out of his eyes every five minutes? Even if she likes the way they brush his eyebrows) she always wonders what they’d look like naked.
Um. Okay, maybe not always. Sometimes she gets distracted by the nape of his neck. Not that she’s actually looking or anything. It’s just, when shelving books you have to go where the books go. Dewey decimal system and all that. (Though she thinks they should switch to the Library of Congress - more flexible and specific and not owned by some litigious asshole, and that’s what most colleges use these days, anyway. At least, any college that she’d want to go to. Maybe that’s what she should tell the guidance counselors next year when called in to talk about applying to colleges. As long as they use Library of Congress, it’s okay by her. Ahem. Anyway.)
He’s been doing this for four weeks (when he transferred in from… somewhere) before they ever have anything resembling a real conversation. She knows he’s talked to Mr. Grunberg, the actual librarian - a nice old man, surprisingly up on new electronic research tools, given his age - but never when she was around. Given that she spends every homeroom, lunchtime, and free period in the library, as well as a couple of hours every day after school? Exceedingly strange.
She can’t tell if he’s just really focused and preoccupied, or avoiding her, or what. She’s pretty sure she’s caught him watching her check out books to other students a couple of times, and once she looked up from recommending Love in the Time of Cholera to her friend Janice to find it sitting on the edge of the desk, though when she glanced back over to his corner he was still just sitting there with his back to them, steadily taking notes like he had been for the last half-hour.
~
When it finally happens, she’s standing behind the desk watching Mandy Lavoy stalk out of the library without paying her fine, having flipped her russet-red curls and thrown the magazine she‘d wanted to the floor in annoyance when told she couldn’t take it out. She can’t resist muttering under her breath, “Wonder if she’s from Thessaly,” as she goes ‘round the counter to pick it up.
She’s startled to hear a low laugh nearby, and when she straightens up she finds him leaning against a table a couple of feet away. “I kinda doubt she’s smart enough to be a witch,” he notes casually, like these weren't the first words beyond "Hi" and "Due back in three weeks" that they'd ever actually exchanged.
“Point,” she says, feeling herself nod and smile without conscious volition. He’s got this look on his face like he’s not sure he should be doing this but seriously doesn’t want to stop, and she feels a momentary surge of triumph to know that he’s been thinking about her just as she’s been thinking about him. Then she blushes, because she doubts he’s been thinking about her exactly as she’s been thinking about him, admitting it to herself only in the wee hours of the morning, staring at the dark ceiling and panting for breath with her hand stilled between trembling thighs.
“So, um, I’m Sam,” he says, ducking his head a bit and looking at her expectantly.
“Penny,” she replies, and sets the magazine down on the table next to him.
He slants a glance at her. “Penelope?”
“Yeah. Old-fashioned, right? But my folks had a thing for The Odyssey. Not that I have any intention of sitting at home waiting.” She’s never liked the implications of being named after the first famous loyal wife in Western literature.
“No, you don’t really strike me as the waiting and weaving type.” The corner of his mouth quirks. “’Course, you don’t really strike me as the adventuring type, either.”
“You don’t even know me!” she protests.
He raises an eyebrow.
“You’re taking AP Chem, Calc 1, the Bible as Literature, Econ, Photo, and Concert Choir. You read a lot of science fiction, mysteries, dead white Brits and American feminists, and have a soft spot for magical realism, existential playwrights, and melodramatic Russians, both literary and musical. You want to go to school on the East Coast, maybe somewhere like Smith, maybe somewhere like Columbia. You like a variety of music - I’ve heard you humming everything from Bach to Metallica to the Indigo Girls, and a bunch of stuff I’ve never heard of. You drive a dark red Honda civic hatchback. And you alphabetize like the wind, but tend to get the order of L and K confused.”
She gapes at him. “I’m not sure if I should be flattered or completely creeped out right now.”
He shrugs, smiles sheepishly. “I pay attention.”
“I guess,” she replies. “So does this mean I get to find out about you?”
“Not sure there’s anything to find out. Army brat, moved around a lot. Dumbass older brother.” He shrugs again. “That’s about it, really.”
“… None of which explains why you spend so much time in the library.”
“Well, why do you spend so much time in the library?”
“So… you’re good at alphabetizing?”
“Among other things.” He shoots her a full-blown grin and she finds herself almost blinded by its sheer open joy, and can’t help but beam back in return.
They stand there smiling at each other for a few moments before he seems to come back to himself, ducking his head again and scratching the back of his neck. “I… should probably go. But it was nice meeting you, Penny. See you around?” That hopeful look again.
“Yeah.” She gulps, nods once. “See you around.”
He strides out of the library on those long legs of his, glancing back just as he turns the corner. She tries to pretend she wasn’t still watching, but knows she’s probably been betrayed by the enormous smile still stuck on her face.
At this particular moment, she thinks, giddily, it’s hard to care.
~
After that, not a day goes by without at least a few minutes of conversation between them. She quickly discovers that he may be the one person at Hillview High School who knows more about classical mythology than she does, but is woefully ignorant about the Science Fiction and Fantasy fiction genre that plays with it. She presses Terry Pratchett’s Witches Abroad and Soul Music on him, thinking he might get a kick out of the twisted fairy tales and the granddaughter of Death, and insists that he at least read Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game even if he never touches any other SF. Something tells her he’ll sympathize with Ender, possibly too much. He looks at the little stack of books dubiously, but checks them out anyway. He in turn recommends books on other types of mythology for her to explore, drawing parallels and making connections between them with captivating ease.
~
She’s shelving books after school one day when Sam comes around the corner with a determined look on his face. He hasn’t been by in the last two days, and upon taking a good look at him, her vague sense of worry deepens.
“You look like shit,” she informs him. He’s got these bruised circles under his eyes and his skin has an underlying colorless cast to it, like he hasn’t seen the sun for weeks. Somehow, despite his broad (hunched, tense) shoulders and ridiculous height, in that moment she thinks that if she just put a finger to his chest and nudged, he’d fall right over.
His mouth twists into a wry, sad smile. “Yeah well. I’ve gotta admit, I’ve been better.” He pauses with his hand on the bookcart, looks down for a few seconds - thinking, steadying himself, she’s not really sure. She watches his green t-shirt-clad chest expand, then subside as he exhales with a sigh. He glances up at her from under his tangled brown bangs, and suddenly her heart clenches. She knows, she knows… well, she’s not sure what exactly she knows, but something’s up. Something’s wrong.
“Sam, what is it?” She knows her voice is low with worry, but she can’t bring herself to care.
He shakes his head. Takes a step towards her. Closes his eyes, breathes. Opens them and takes the last step, closing the gap between them and carefully placing his warm hand over hers on the bookcart.
She can feel him trembling slightly, shaking with nerves or exhaustion or hope or all of the above.
He reaches out with his other hand, drifting the pads of his fingers against her cheek before gently cupping her jaw in his palm. He’s looking at her so seriously, she’s sure he’s about to tell her that something awful has happened, that his grandmother died or his house had burnt down or his mom got diagnosed with cancer or something. Strange how they’ve never really talked about their families. She’s seized with a sudden urge to tell him all about her younger sisters and their family dog and how her father plays bridge with his brother (her uncle Donny) over the internet every Thursday. But maybe not right this second, because he’s looming there in front of her, leaning in, swaying just a tiny bit as his hand tightens on hers and his eyes slide shut, hers following just a fraction of a second later.
Then, then, he kisses her. He kisses her like a drowning man, like a ravenous wolf, like his life depends on it, like every other kissing cliché she has ever heard and probably more besides.
At this point her brain kicks in and she grabs the front of his shirt, twisting her hand into the soft fabric to pull him closer and kiss him back fiercely.
In response, he backs her up against the bookshelf and lets go of her hand in order to clasp her waist. She can feel the heat of his hand through the thin cotton of her Teen Titans t-shirt and holds onto his arm to keep it there, marveling at the way it seems to raise the temperature of her entire body.
He bites tentatively at her lips, teeth scraping and holding on with an edge of desperation. When she tilts her head and curls the tip of her tongue into his mouth, she can feel the whine that emanates from the back of his throat all the way down to her toes.
A minute later she hears herself make an embarrassingly similar sound when he nips teasingly at her earlobe, breath hot against her neck. He seems to take that as permission, and his mouth fastens eagerly onto the pulse point under her jaw as his hands slip under her shirt, fabric sliding up her torso until it reaches her breasts. She buries one hand in his hair, lets the other clutch at his elbow, nails digging into his tricep as she struggles to keep breathing through the heat.
When one of his thumbs grazes her left nipple through the cotton of her bra she gasps hard, knocking the back of her head against the metal of the bookshelf and sinking into it as her knees turn to water.
When she opens her eyes again, he’s staring down at her with eyes blown wide and dark and something like worshipful, muddy green gone almost black with emotion.
She smiles shakily at him. “You… okay?”
He gazes at her for a second or two more before visibly pulling himself together enough to answer.
“I… yeah,” he breathes. “Yeah.”
Slides his hand across her jaw and around to the back of her neck, leans down to kiss her again, sweet and deep and warm.
At this point her hands seem to develop a mind of their own. A very insistent mind of their own, as they reach down to tug the hem of his t-shirt up enough to allow her access to the hot, supple skin of his back and abs.
He moans into her mouth as she runs her hands along his skin, and pulls back long enough to let her push the grey hoodie off his shoulders and strip the t-shirt over his head, leaving his hair in even more disarray than it had been.
She laughs up at him and ruffles it some more, but gets rapidly distracted by the sight of those broad shoulders exposed to the school’s harsh fluorescent light.
She can’t even describe the sound he makes when she runs her nails down his neck and across his perfect collarbone, but she’s startled when he drops to his knees in front of her, and the hands he places on her waist are trembling.
He looks up at her beseechingly as he moves to push her t-shirt up over her breasts. “May I?” His breath ghosts across her abdomen, and she babbles, “Yes, yes, please, yes.”
He tucks his face into her cleavage and just breathes, once, twice. She’s glad that he doesn’t seem to mind her nails digging into his shoulder, because she can’t help but grip even more tightly as he noses at her left breast, then carefully closes his mouth around her peaked nipple, tonguing it firmly through the light blue cotton. Perhaps thinking it only fair, he then proceeds to do the same with her right nipple, leaving her left one to chafe under the cool damp fabric with each inhale and exhale.
“Please, Sam.” She’s not even sure what she’s begging for, at this point, but he seems to understand. Smart boy.
Smart boy with hands and mouth and oh… She bangs her head against the bookcase again when he flips down her left bracup and huffs warm air over the chilled nipple. She feels him grin against the underside of her breast, hears him mumble, “Careful, there,” before deliberately twirling his tongue clockwise around the aureole.
She manages to gasp out, “Jesus, Sam,” before being reduced to simply panting and straining and holding on to his shoulder for dear life as her focus narrows to nothing but his hot, wet, exploratory mouth and tongue and teeth.
He stops. His hands move to her hips, then smooth her black pleated skirt down the outsides of her thighs. “Penny,” he says, low and serious.
When she pries her eyes open this time, his hands have moved to rest on the backs of her bare calves, tucked right behind her knees, and he’s staring up at her again with the most naked look of need she has ever seen.
Keeping their eyes locked, he slowly starts sliding his hands up the backs of her legs until his fingers reach the edge of her black bikini underwear where the curve of her ass meets the top of her thighs.
“Please tell me this is okay,” he begs.
“Please…” she repeats, faintly.
The half-smile of slightly predatory delight that comes over his face starts butterfly flutters going in her gut, which only get stronger as he slowly, slowly draws her underwear down her legs. When he reaches the tops of her black Chucks, she lifts one foot to let him slip it through the leghole, leaving the scrap of fabric to dangle around her other ankle.
Then he runs his hands back up her legs, kneeling up to cup her ass and duck under her skirt. He presses his face in, a deep breath turning into a full-body shudder. Her knees buckle, and she instinctively spreads her thighs with the movement as she settles herself to lean more sturdily against the bookcase.
He brings his right hand around to comb his fingers through her pubic hair, one finger dipping farther in than the rest.
“God… Penny. You’re so wet,” he breathes. There’s a pause, and she imagines him bringing his finger to his nose, pushing it past his lips. She hears a muffled whimper, then suddenly, suddenly, a cool wet tongue swipes velvet across her clit, hot breath whispering against skin and heating her up straight through.
She has no way to classify the noise she makes as he applies his tongue again, undulating, caressing, turning her nerves and blood and thoughts to liquid fire. 800.001, perhaps. Or PSwhatever, prefera… Oh god.
“Oh god oh god oh god,” she gasps, helplessly, as he finds exactly the right spot at the very edge of the slow, steady twirl of his tongue around her clit.
The edge of the bookshelf digs into her fingers as she grips it, desperately trying to hold herself together. “Please,” she manages, “please don’t stop.”
He hums smugly, and the vibrations send a quiver up along her spine straight to her hindbrain. His tongue never falters as she shakes and shivers and melts against the end of the bookshelf, boneless and panting, metal cool against her cheek as she moves her head restlessly back and forth with the aftershocks.
When she finally forces her eyes to open, she finds herself gazing down at a glowingly proud Sam smiling shyly up at her through his bangs.
“C’mere,” she says, hooking a hand into his collar, tugging him up off his knees and pulling his mouth to hers for a slow, deep kiss. She’s surprised at how good he tastes, and when she breathes in to steady herself it actually makes her a little dizzy instead. He crowds into her up against the shelf, intertwining his limbs with hers as he kisses and kisses and kisses her.
As the intense expansive fuzziness in her head subsides a little, she becomes aware of him pressing firmly into her thigh, pushy without meaning to be. When the realization hits her, it nearly makes her knees buckle again, but instead she holds onto him harder and snakes her other hand down over his hip to rub along the hard length of him.
He moans into her mouth when she does, and throws out a hand to lean his weight on the bookshelf. She fumbles a bit with the button of his jeans, but once she manages to get it open she can then slide the zipper down in one smooth motion.
She hooks both thumbs into the elastic of his underwear to pull it with his jeans down over his hips and onto his thighs. She gets caught briefly, causing him to inhale sharply with surprise, but eventually manages to maneuver the material over his cock without further incident. She sets one hand on his hip, watches the other wrap delicately around him, hears him struggle against a deep groan at her touch - and lose the battle when she takes more solid hold. Then she deliberately raises her chin to look up and watch his expression as she jacks him.
He’s got his eyes shut tight, brow furrowed in concentration, teeth digging deep into his bottom lip. In that moment, his face is the hottest thing she has ever, ever seen.
Not taking her eyes from his face, she continues to fist the length of his erection, steady rhythm, definite pressure. When she tries adding a bit of twist at the end, he releases his lip with a gasp, and she takes the opportunity to seal her mouth over his, licking in with her tongue in time to each stroke of her hand. She can feel him straining, can see his free hand flailing and shivering with tension at the very edge of her current field of view, and she spares a moment of thought towards feeling ridiculously proud to have pushed him into this state.
Soon he is gasping softly into her mouth more than kissing, so she nips her way across his jaw and down his neck, her hand speeding up to match his panting. His entire body is shaking, and when she bites down hard on his shoulder, his breath hitches, and he groans her name out long and low as he spills over her hand.
They lean against the end of the bookshelf for several minutes afterwards, mostly immobile other than their gradually calming breathing and the occasional involuntary shudder.
~
Eventually, he pushes himself up a bit in order to gaze down at her, a look in his eyes that she hazily categorizes as “complicated wonder.”
“Penny,” he says.
“Sam,” she replies, and she knows that same look is in her own eyes as she reaches up to tuck a strand of hair behind his ear.
He leans down to press a deep, sweet kiss to her lips, then pauses for a few moments with his forehead touching hers, eyes closed. Opens his eyes, picks up a book from the to-be-shelved cart. “Let me help,” he offers.
She quirks a small smile at him. “Always the gentleman,” she teases gently, and starts at the other end of the cart. The two of them together make quick work of the bookcart, but as they get close to finishing she notices that his previous melancholy seems to be seeping back in, evident in his worried brow and slumped line of shoulder.
He waits, brooding, as she closes up the library, but when she puts a hand on his shoulder he smiles up at her, and even if it doesn’t completely reach his eyes she can’t help the tug she feels on her heart. She slips her hand into his as they walk out to the parking lot, and he holds on just a little too tight, like he’s afraid she might dissolve right in front of him, disappear into thin air.
~
When they reach the car, he leans her against the driver’s-side window for another kiss, hands heavy on her hips and hair flying every which way in the wind as she twines her fingers through it.
He pulls away to let her unlock the car and open the door. His smile turns wistful, and for a moment they just stand there and look at each other. He opens his mouth, probably to say goodbye, but she stops him by jumping in with, “Do you… need a ride home?”
“I….” She can see the hesitation in his eyes, but then he smiles. “Yeah, that would be great. Thanks.”
“Great!” she beams back at him, and gets in as he goes ‘round to the other side of the car. They don’t talk much during the drive, but she slips her right hand into his left one once they’ve pulled out of the school parking lot, and he covers both their hands with his right one, holds them safe and secure in his lap.
He directs her to a residential neighborhood a few minutes’ drive from school, somewhat rundown but not terrible, and has her stop in front of a small box of a house with a big black truck parked in the driveway. They sit for a moment, staring out the windshield, not looking at each other, but when she feels his hands tighten around hers she looks over at him and solemnly considers the line of his profile, points and curves softened by messy dark hair and the tiniest remnant of baby fat.
He glances up at her, and she recalls all of a sudden how strung-out he’d looked at the start of all this a mere couple of hours ago. But rather than do anything as simple as asking, she opts to just lean in to meet his kiss, both of them melting into it, clutching at the solid comfort of the car interior. Eventually, he pulls away, breath rasping in and out raggedly. Holds on to her hands as he looks at her with eyes both clouded and clear, that underlying sadness coming through more strongly than ever.
“Goodbye,” he says, quiet but sure.
“Goodbye,” she replies.
She wishes he would kiss her again, knows it’s written right across her face, but he shakes himself once, presses his lips together determinedly, and gets out of the car. Walks quickly up the path, like if he stops he’ll never manage to start again. He unlocks the door, pushes it open. Stops. Turns. When his eyes meet hers she feels a weight settle over her, comforting and nerve-wracking and shivery all at once. He smiles, and even from this distance she can see the wistfulness of it, sad and sweet and real. She smiles back, gives just a little wave. He nods, takes a deep breath, and goes in the house.
She sits for a few minutes, gazing at the door, then bangs her head against the steering wheel thrice before driving slowly home.
~
She never sees him again.
Whenever she closes her eyes in the following few days, she can still picture his lanky form framed in the doorway, can feel the warmth of his hands and the promise of his mouth. On the fourth day after, she starts to get worried in earnest, and what flashes at the edges of her consciousness becomes instead the tense lines around his eyes and the way his shoulders never completely relaxed, even at his most open.
After a week, she gives in and asks Mr. Grunberg if he knows anything, but he just shakes his head, says no one’s seen him for a week and half.
She doesn’t correct him.
~
Two weeks later, while they’re working on magnetizing a stack of new books, Mr. Grunberg casually says, “Oh, by the way. Sam Winchester? Has apparently transferred. This morning the office got a request for his transcripts to be sent to a school in Wyoming.” He goes on to talk about what a pity it is, a boy that smart having attended seven schools in three years, but she’s tuned him out in favor of sitting stock still and blank with distress. Eventually she manages some kind of sound of agreement, and even resumes threading magnetic strips through hardcover bindings, hands moving mechanically without the benefit of coherent guidance from her brain.
After closing up the library that evening, she goes to the table in the corner that’s still piled high with the books he’d pulled from the shelves over the course of the past few months.
Her plan is to just put the books on a shelving cart, shelve ‘em, and be done with it. She’s glad he’s not dead or anything, but it’s hard to be happy about the abruptness of his departure, about the complete lack of explanation. But somehow, when she goes to pick up the books, she just can’t let it (him) go that easily. Instead, she finds herself pulling the pile toward her to peruse. One by one, she takes books from the top of the stack, contemplates them, then puts them on the cart. Hungarian folk tales, comparative shamanism, Chinese ghost lore, Roman religious syncretism (she gets distracted by the discussion of the Greek goddess Artemis becoming the Roman Diana and reads for a few pages before catching herself and moving on), Paul Bunyan, advanced Latin, Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber (this one she sets aside to check out herself), werewolf lore, personifications of death, herbal medicine, hell in Western literature, Terry Pratchett’s Thief of Time… slip of paper. Slip of paper? Sitting at the very bottom of the stack is a thin rectangle of scratch paper with three neat lines of writing at the center.
A phone number with an unfamiliar area code.
An email address - a string of random-looking numbers at yahoo.com.
And a P.O. box for some town she’s never heard of in Missouri.
She sits down with a thump, staring down at the little scrap of paper sitting so innocently on the desk.
~
She’s never called him. Never sent email, never thought about dropping a letter in the mail (thought about writing the letter, sure, about a year after he left, but somehow when faced with a blank sheet of paper words just didn’t seem to make any sense to her anymore).
But she still has that piece of paper, carries it folded up in her wallet like one day it will be exactly the right currency. She hardly ever thinks about it - pretty much only every couple of years when she switches wallets - but she knows she’ll never voluntarily throw it away. The one time her wallet got stolen she felt more panic on account of those three little rows of text than she did for any of her credit cards or IDs or cash. When she got it back with the cash gone but everything else intact, she’d been so relieved that she almost dialed him up. Her cell phone was in her hand before she realized she had no idea what she would say.
Maybe someday.